Captain Montgomery Scott of Star Fleet in his retirement speech expressed dismay at the direction Star Fleet has taken.  He particularly expressed his disgust at the graphical interface aboard the new star ships.

In my day an engineer was looked up to and respected.  Sure the Captain got all the glory but the engineer was the brains.  We were the ones crawling around in Jeffries tubes and not being electrocuted.  We were the intellects in Star Fleet.   When I started out the fleet was using Star Fleet 3.1 as the operating system for its ships.  And that system wasn’t easy.  It took grace under pressure.  You try typing “copy con c:dump core load /f /s” on a command line while the Romulans are attacking!  But now?  It’s so easy.  Engineers don’t even have to go to school to study anymore. All these young punks have to do now is use their finger to touch an icon.  I hate this new system!

Captain Scott is of course referring to the new “Star Fleet 8” operating system, which according to a Star Fleet press release promises to make running a star ship “easier than operating an Apple iPad.”

Where’s the goddamn run  command on the toolbar?  How the hell am I supposed to type “go to warp speed” when I can’t even get past the part that keeps asking me to download my favorite music?  Favorite music?  What the hell has that got to do with maintaining dilithium crystals or keeping the anti-matter from mixing with the matter, which I don’t have to tell you would be pretty bad!

Captain Scott then closed his retirement speech by blasting the current generation of Star Fleet officers as “punks.”

Officials at Star Fleet were quick to defend the fleet from Scott’s criticisms.

“Look” said one,

It’s all about advancing technology and making things easier.  We appreciate that Scotty is “old school” but the graphical interface is much quicker and easier to learn.  That leaves our officers with more down time which they can use in a hologram.

Another states that Scotty is just a “bitter old man” whose time has passed him by.

We really should have retired him years ago.  I mean the guy hasn’t passed a physical in 20 years. On his yearly evaluation under “goals to be accomplished” he wrote “eat more cheeseburgers.”  Once when we had first contact with a new life form that resembled a hot dog Scotty ate them.  There was one survivor who lasted a week stuck in Scotty’s mustache.  He was so traumatized he went back to his home planet and recommended not joining the Federation.

As to what he plans to do during his retirement, Captain Scott replied, “putter about with command line interfaces.  And eat cheeseburgers.  But mainly eat cheeseburgers.”

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